My name is Jason Dunion and I'm with the Hurricane Research Division of
NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL.
NOAA is pleased to once again be partnering with NASA in the field to
coordinate our research of Atlantic Hurricanes. Coordinated aircraft
research efforts between NOAA and NASA began in 1998 and this year's
field campaign represents the 4th joint collaboration since then. The
prior three collaborations have been extremely fruitful and we expect the
same success this summer. The field activities that are planned will
provide a unique opportunity to study an area of the ocean basin that is
infrequently sampled by aircraft and yet generates numerous tropical
waves?that represent the seedlings for many tropical cyclones each year.
In fact, these seedlings account for ~60% of all tropical cyclones and
~85% of all major hurricanes that occur in the Atlantic. And yet, only
about 1 in 10 of these tropical waves actually forms into a named storm.
The reasons for this are still not fully understood.

Over the past several decades, the NOAA OAR's
forecasts of hurricane track have steadily improved by ~1% per year.
Unfortunately, its forecasts of hurricane intensity have not been met
with the same level of success over the years. In fact, NOAA's advancements
in predicting hurricane intensity lag behind those of track by ~15-20 years.
Simply put, predicting how a hurricane will strengthen or weaken is a
difficult task and scientists are still attempting to fully understand
the many complex factors in the atmosphere and ocean that can affect
hurricane intensity. For these reasons, NOAA's main focus this summer
will be to closely examine hurricane intensity change by conducting its
Intensity Forecasting Experiment (called IFEX) during its collaborations
with NASA. The main goals of IFEX include:

Collecting observations that span the tropical cyclone lifecycle in
a variety of environments;

Using remote controlled drone aircraft called Aerosondes to study the
very lowest regions of the hurricane environment;

Investigating the structure and evolution of hurricanes that make
landfall and eventually decay over land;

and finally, furthering our understanding and interpretation of
current and future satellite platforms that use microwave frequencies to
measure surface winds over the world's oceans.

Two of these NOAA research experiments will be directly coordinated
with NASA's NAMMA project this summer:

the first is The Saharan Air Layer Experiment, or SALEX -this
experiment will use NOAA's P-3 turboprop and G-IV high altitude jet Hurricane
Hunters to investigate how dry dusty Saharan dust storms that contain
strong jets of air can suppress hurricane development in the North
Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. This feature, also known as the Saharan Air
Layer, or SAL, moves out from the Sahara Desert into the Atlantic every
3-5 days in the summer and early fall, can cover an area roughly the size
of the lower 48 U.S. states, and often travel as far west as Central
America, the Gulf of Mexico, and South Florida. NOAA's plans include
operating its aircraft from Barbados, St. Croix, and Bermuda to carry out
this summer's Saharan Air Layer Experiments.

the second coordinated experiment will be The Tropical Cyclogenesis
Experiment, or GENEX -this experiment will use NOAA's P-3 Orion turboprop
and G-IV high altitude jet Hurricane Hunters to improve our understanding
of how a tropical disturbance forms (or doesn't form) into a hurricane.
The processes in the atmosphere and ocean that lead to hurricane
formation (?or non-formation) are complex and not well understood by
scientists and this experiment is designed to help unlock some of those
mysteries.

This year's NOAA-NASA field campaign will monitor storms from seedlings
over Africa to mature hurricanes that might affect the U.S. coastline
several days later. NASA will focus its efforts to study insipient
tropical disturbances and the Saharan Air Layer over Africa and the
eastern North Atlantic. As the "baton is passed" east to west from NASA
to NOAA, NOAA (operating from Barbados, St. Croix, or Bermuda), will
continue monitoring these same tropical systems, their possible genesis
into hurricanes, and their interactions with the Saharan Air Layer.
This summer's NOAA-NASA partnership will provide the most geographically
expansive aircraft monitoring of tropical cyclones that has ever been
carried out across the North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. The NAMMA and
IFEX programs will also enable scientists to closely monitor disturbances
that originate over Africa and eventually impact the U.S.

NOAA and NASA scientists will use the data that is collected this summer
to help unlock some of the mysteries related to hurricane intensity
change in the Atlantic. Data that is collected will be incorporated into
NOAA and other operational forecast models around the world to help
improve forecasts of hurricane track and intensity.